LankyBastard

Thanks for the suggestions, I like the E-series, T450/T450S (with 1080p), but I think the dim display on the Motile would be a deal-breaker for them. How about refurbished? I wouldn't trust my parents to buy one used themselves and I am several states away from them. There's plenty of sites that appear to focus on refurbished laptops with 1 year warranties, but are those worth staying away from, or are some of them ok?

My older parents are looking for a basic laptop to replace a very old desktop I built them over a decade ago, and they are quite tight on cash. I doubt they could possibly afford anything above $400, so I'd like to keep it under that. However, if there's something just slightly above that number that has a lot more bang for the buck, they might be willing to meet that number. They only plan to use it for web browsing, zoom meetings, watching videos, and text editing. As long as it's snappy enough, I think they would prioritize battery life over pure performance. What recommendations do you have? Thanks!

Well build them of course. I'm working on plans for a farmhouse table, shoe rack, coffee table, end tables, drawer organizers, dresser, and Murphy bed.

Adding to this, there are plenty of music artists that are doing live-streams from their own homes. It's a really unique experience to watch and are generally free (though donations are highly encouraged).

I hope this turns into a landmark retaliation lawsuit that paves a way for more protections against things like this. It's illegal to fire someone for complaining about working conditions not meeting state or federal safety standards, and if there's not verbiage in there to cover for a literal pandemic, there should be. As much as I can hope though, I doubt it will come to fruition any time soon, especially with the courts stacked the way they are right now. On another note, I know plenty of people who used to work directly for or do subcontracts for Amazon. Amazon does all kinds of shady stuff behind closed doors where no recording devices are allowed, like holding meetings about how to prevent delivery drivers/warehouse workers from unionizing, and how to fire people and make it look like it's not retaliation. They break contracts with people that do work for them on the regular, and end up paying up small percentages of what they owe them because they know people need the money and they can pay lawyers to keep things tied up infinitely in court. They've also fired pretty much anybody that hasn't signed their more recent contracts, just so they could force any they re-hired to sign stricter contracts with all kinds of crazy non-compete clauses and such (what DOESN'T compete with Amazon... ). If there's one thing Amazon is good at, it's squeezing the people who work for them for everything possible. That's entirely how Bezos got so rich in the first place, and now he has decades of practice to know how to get away with it. Even in a time like this, the only way I could see things change is if it is forced through legislation, and even then, I'm sure they'll figure out new sleazy ways to do business.

Learning to edit photos better using Gimp and Darktable, learning to do basic modeling in Blender, designing furniture in Sketchup, taking PADI online classes for scuba diving, learning Roll20 for running D&D campaigns online, and training on a hangboard for rock climbing for the first time.

First video game: Duck hunt First PC game: Descent

Here are some pictures of my faithful boy. He's my second rescue, and here he his in his three primary modes: play, adventure, and snuggle.

@dange since you do photo and video editing, I'm surprised no one has asked you whether monitor color accuracy and gamut are important. Is that something you are looking for as well?

The Half-Like remake Black Mesa has a pretty great soundtrack. If you like this one, you'll probably find many others that you'll love:

From learning the hard way, if you purchase MDF furniture and end up having to move even once, you'll probably regret it. I got what looked to be a nice corner table about 5 years ago and within months the finish was rubbing off of it and no longer felt solid. Even worse, if you ever have to move, no matter how careful you are, you'll likely mess up something with the MDF where the assembly hardware goes, and MDF is easily eaten away by repeated screwing in and out. Even after removing a screw from MDF, you've probably lost close to a third of the material that the screw is supposed to bite into.

@Idelly Welly Are you sure you're not a reseller? Your first post in this topic screams advertisement to me. Having a filter like that body-adjacent is a terrible idea for the ozone reasons @wkdpaul mentioned already, especially if you use one in that manner for any significant length of time. The worst part is that any health problems that would come from doing this would be chronic, so they'd creep up so slowly you won't notice any difference day to day, but then some time down the road, you'll suddenly wonder what happened that made you feel so consistently terrible all of the time. Ozone also damages lungs, so with current problems, I think this is the last thing you'd want to do. The bottom line is that using something like this is introducing a new and very certain problem to fight a potential existing one. You are much better off just wearing a cloth filter over your face than relying on something like this to filter the air around you, especially since an ionizing filter will basically make the particles in the air around you want to stick to you like a balloon you just rubbed on your head. Then, even if the smell goes away around you, it's because those same particles are now literally sticking to the outside of you. So imagine just how much mostly invisible garbage you are bringing home on yourself and your clothes. That's why hospitals don't rely on filters like these and instead use HEPA filters, because they actually remove particulates from the environment and are magnitudes safer.

That's some info, but there's a lot more if you open Event Viewer, right click on 'Application' under Windows Logs, then use 'save all events as'. I've seen other people attach the file directly on here, so you shouldn't have to use pastebin.

@AshRowdy Are you running Windows? If so, can you post an eventviewer log?

Haha, well I wasn't expecting you to literally measure your ears, but since you did, for comparison, my ears are about 1.5" wide and 2.5" tall.

Just curious, how big are your ears? If you have bigger ears, I'd stay away from the Steelseries headsets. I have bigger ears, and while my Arctis 7 wireless headsets causes me pain after even 30 minutes (I literally have to wear a beanie under them to wear them for any extended time), I can wear my wife's HS60's as long as I please with no issues. Those are the only two I have tried on that list, though, so I can't comment personally on any of the others.

Ash, when you installed the new card, did you use a driver removal tool to clean up any traces of the old drivers? If not, it is worth trying to remove all traces and do a fresh install with the latest drivers. If you're still having problems after that, there's other things we can follow up with.

Like Ronnie said, unless you are drawing a huge amount of wattage, you should be fine in either scenario. However, in situations like this, best practice is to get a power cord that's long enough. This becomes important when you have high current draw appliances, especially with very long cable runs. If you add a power strip/cord to the end of an extension cord, while the extension cord itself 'might' be fine, the rest of the cord on the power strip/cord will not be rated for the same load anymore. The longer a cable run, the more resistance it can quickly build up, and the more heat it can produce. For example, if you attach a light duty power strip with a 1' cord to a 100ft heavy duty extension cable and then try to run an big air conditioner off it, you could end up getting enough heat in that short 1' section of cord that could cause it to break down and expose an electrical/fire hazard. This is why longer cords, especially ones for heavy duty tasks, have a much larger inner conductor and often lower resistance materials on the inside so that it doesn't create as much heat/resistance. You might have witnessed something like this if you live somewhere it's cold/snowy with extension cords run to engine blocks melting the snow around them.

Do you use Steam? If you still have the cd key, you might be able to activate the game on Steam, bypassing possible corrupt file issues with your cd's.

What is the brand and model of the cooker? With those details, I might be able to identify what the part is and what it's function is. Off the top of my head, though, I'd guess it's either what moose just said,a thermocouple, or heating element.

Ikea desktops are ok, but IMO overrated, especially if you are looking for something butcherblock. I'd suggest checking out Home Depot's butcher block countertops. They have different types of wood available as well as different finishes, and you get more for your money than you would for a similar Ikea top. It will probably be a special order so will take about a week (assuming you choose cheap shipping), but it will be worth it. You can look at it before you bring it home as well, so if you're not happy with the quality, you can get refunded. From there, just find some legs or drawer units (sized to fit each other) from whatever source you like to fit your needs and you're pretty much set for all the bare essentials of a good desk that can be expanded with customizations and accessories. I'm curious as well why you aren't interested in a sit/stand desk. Do you just not care about the function, dislike the appearance, want to save the money, or is it something else?

Spirals, using the word 'relationship' for an acquaintance you met online is kind of telling, and I mean this in the nicest way possible that it's kind of a red flag. If there's one thing I have learned over time, it's that desperation is the last thing that will help you in a situation like this. You may either be driving away someone you could otherwise at least be friends with, or mark yourself as an easy target if their motives are more malicious. Whatever you do, play it calm, do it with respect and honesty, and be ready to move on if you have to with no hard feelings. You just met each other and don't owe each other anything. You might have enjoyed some time together, but there's no obligation past that. There's lots of things that could be happening, some here even mentioning scamming, but I think it's just as likely she's busy with something else IRL or possibly she's picked up on your interest and it's not mutual. Also, one last thing, if a girl likes you, she won't care what kind of mic you have, and if you don't have time to talk for long, at least answer the call and let her know what's up and that it's late. That is always better than just ignoring a call.

You might find that some things don't sound that great using the built in stereo mix. I've used a program in the past called voicemeeter and had much better results. Check it out here: https://www.vb-audio.com/Voicemeeter/banana.htm

Hi, Long time PC builder and gamer here looking for things to help occupy my time with all the craziness going on. I'm sure there's plenty for me to learn here too, so I look forward to that too. I used to be on other tech forums about a decade ago but fell out of the habit after my main forum shut down. RIP Abit-USA, although I'm not mad that the evidence of my mushy-brained youthful self was erased with it. Just recently I was finally able to upgrade my faithful old FX-6300/GTX 750Ti rig to something more modern, so I've been enjoying on catching up on some titles my old rig struggled with. It's not the most sophisticated rig, but you'd be hard challenged to find better performance per price, and I'm proud of that. I've always enjoyed LTT's channel, appreciate the fact that they don't take themselves to seriously, and think that the community that has popped up around it is really cool. I guess I'm just finally deciding to be a more active part of it and not just a lurker. Cheers!